White Pearl (game)
Description White Pearl is a story-focused RPG made using RPGMaker VXAce, with the Luna Engine add-on. It was released at GameJolt in October 2017, Itch in November 2017, and released on rpgmaker dot net, at 23rd May 2018. The game features a main storyline around 25 hours in length, with a turn-based battle system that utilises systems such as cooldowns and charge times. The game also has a crafting system, where existing gear can be upgraded, or new gear made using materials dropped from enemies or bought from shops. The game has a large main cast, expanding over 10 main characters, and multiple guest characters. The flow of the game's characters works in a similar way to Final Fantasy IV, where party members come and go as they please - perspectives change, or either characters leave indefinitely. The game was solely made by Harry Gill over a 3 year-long period, although the community of RPGMaker provided scripts and assets for him. Because the game was to be released free, it allowed him to use these free of charge. Reception to the game was very positive, with review scores averaging around 70-80%. On Itch.io, the game achieved a score of 4.8/5.0. Positives of the game were the deep story that explored the characters motives and struggle, it's impressive length and scale for a free game and how deep combat and strategy develops later on in the game. Negativity was centred towards the lack of a quest log, buggy release, and questionable narrative (the way of explaining the story). Full development of the game began in September 2015, with the basic concepts being written since November 2014. A prequel to the game, Fabrication, was announced and started development at July 2018 - it was to be released in 2019, but was delayed indefinitely because Harry does not have as much free time to create it. Character List Currently being created. *Information is from the developer's database. Pearlto Divinia Elyswer Vael *More will be added. Development After experimenting with RPGMaker engines such as RPGMaker XP and the initial version of VX, Harry began development of White Pearl in September 2015, but it is believed that he started game development even earlier than he thought - since the game executable was created on 22nd July 2014. During this time from July 2014 to September 2015, Harry was largely concepting and throwing ideas around in the game. The initial goal was to create a lengthy RPG game with the main characters based around players he met in the MMO: Final Fantasy XIV. Despite this, Harry developed original personalities for them - as the focus was to make White Pearl more of an original game, rather than a fan based game. Inspiration was taken from the political and very world-based nature of Final Fantasy XII - and the character based nature of Final Fantasy IV. Development went along exceedingly quick by the end of 2015, as the base storyline was developed up until the party arrive at Lucae. At first, the storyline was conceived as development proceeded, and no real plans and roadmaps were made until early 2016. By February - March 2016, Harry has written the base personalities of each main character and the nature of each location - so he could have an idea of what to do, how to improve, and where to go next. By this point, the game was using an ATB battle system, and many aspects of the game were not entirely finished such as the sound design, side quests, and other content - however the game still had a playable, but bare, main storyline up until Lucae. Lots of research had to be done in order to realise a proper vision for the game. Around March - June 2016, Harry attempted to start development on a remake of White Pearl using the recent RPGMaker MV engine (released in 2015), but not everything was immediately convertible. Every single tileset had to be resized, and every map remade - because this was too much work, the remake was scrapped. In an effort to infuse the project with new life, Harry purchased the Luna Engine - which allowed him to make extensive changes to the user interface of the game. At first, very little progress was made due to the high learning curve - instead, attention was mostly centered on making custom graphics and sprites for the characters, so he also purchased Game Character Hub. Different facesets and custom sprites were made for the majority of main characters - although the decision was made to keep a few main characters' sprites and faces as stock - such as U'vharr - as the work to replace every single sprite in every single cutscene with suitable facial expressions for each line of dialog would prove too much for him. Finally finishing up adding and implementing the new sprites and facesets in the game, Harry began working with the Luna Engine by August 2016. Development began on a prequel to White Pearl, Fabrication, starting the same month to October 2016. Because it was developed with another person, many assets were made until the decision was made to scrap the game because White Pearl needed to be finished first. Harry then used the story of Fabrication (which had Aura and Crimson) merged into White Pearl to make the world have more depth and meaning - and made it a huge part of the game's lore. Although the only playable content was the introduction, the game was to include a day/night quest system, and a real time battle system. Assets such as facesets and sprites were made for all the main characters, and a few orginial locations were made. Some of these locations were then reused and modified in White Pearl - namely, the design of the Celestial Plane and Ry'ner. Using the Luna Engine, It was easy to display different graphics and move around the menus, although many revisions were made to the menu design. There was a compatibility issue with the Luna Engine and the currently existing Quest Log, so Harry had to remove the Quest Log from the game in order for the Luna Engine to function. Many adjustments and refinements were made to the game up until the end of 2016, although the base game was still only around 50% complete. By the start of January 2017, Harry had set a release window for the game: to release by the end of 2017, or early 2018. With the new skills in Photoshop, Harry began replacing every single lore book, help file, and menu design in the game with a higher quality design, and to fit within the overall presentation and colour scheme of White Pearl. Harry wrote a story plan for the final moments in White Pearl in May 2017, although development would not proceed until late June because more refinements had to be made. These changes, along with multiple cut-scene additions, dialog rewrites/refinements and new characters were made by January - June 2017. By this time, the game was around 65% complete. Most sound was decided and implemented in the game by halfway through June 2017, and the background music, sound effects, and background effects were mixed and looped using Audacity. Chapter 11-15 of the game was developed in 2 months, finished by 20th October 2017. Inspiration was mainly took from the latter part of Final Fantasy XV for the story and tone. With everything finally complete, White Pearl released on GameJolt the next day. After and during release, Harry noticed a few new technical shortcomings with the game engine. It struggles to display large amounts of content at once, and handle multiple processes in battle. Because Harry didn't design the game with these newly discovered technical limitations of the game engine in mind, these small shortcomings are present. This made the game, towards the final moments, perform slower due to the amount of content that needed to be checked and processed by the system. Major bug fixes and balance changes were present in Version 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 of the game. 1.0.3 introduced a new cutscene and sequence in the introduction, as well as a new cutscene and sequence towards the final moments of Chapter 1. 1.0.4-1.0.5 saw bug fixes and a new sequence in Chapter 10, and battle performance improvement. 1.0.6 primarily had many major sound design changes, such as a few new and replaced sound effects and music. This was to reduce file size. 1.0.7 was the first major update to be announced and issued on Steam, and it included an alternate ending, lots of changes to existing items and new playable content. UI changes were also present. It is the biggest update to date in terms of file size; with the update needing around 35MB of additional space - increasing the overall file size by about 20%. 1.0.8 had two new locations: Breka and The Reaches of Kolan, new quality of life changes, changes to the main ending, and more. 1.0.9 brought only balance changes. 2.0.0 was a major final patch for White Pearl, making the game as accessible as can-be for newer players, and was developed with review feedback in mind. Despite 2.0.0 being the largest update in scale, because it didn't bring any new content - like sound or areas (1.0.7 was the only "major" addition to the game), it ended up being 3.5 MB in size - all being system and database changes. White Pearl Patch Release Release and Reception White Pearl debuted on GameJolt at 21st October 2017, the initial response was very small - with only around 20 downloads and 1 rating. Despite this, White Pearl went through 2 versions updates to fix bugs, balance the game, and add new cutscenes to complement the story. White Pearl was then released on itch.io at 9th November 2017 as Version 1.0.3, with the response being far more popular as a forum post was put up in RPGMaker.net, advertising the game. Despite many downloads, there were no formal reviews to determine the game's quality. Finally, White Pearl saw it's emergence on Steam at the 3rd December, with the game garnering over 200 wishlisters before release at 23rd December 2017 as Version 1.0.6. At release day, the initial response was very positive with many reviews stating that it "invoked feelings of nostalgia" and that it is alike to early Final Fantasy games. Praise also went to the sound design of the game, and the music - stating that although it was not original to the game, it was used well and fitting. Overall, many people felt that the game's story and characters were it's biggest positives, along with the amount of content available in the game. Negative reviews were centred around the messy narrative at the beginning of the game, failing to capture interest at the time, and bugs. Some people said that the lore was confusing at first, but easy to understand over time and interesting. The dialogue was classed as unoriginal, but still not the worst, as the same reviewer pointed out how the story and characters also focus on humour at times to break away from the norm and give a breath of fresh air to the characters and narrative. The world of White Pearl was also classed as "coherent", and crafts a "meaningful universe". The amount of skills, items and characters available was praised, a certain reviewer stating that the each playable character had a unique playstyle - and players could mix and match what they wanted in their party. There was lots of correspondence in the community around bug reports, and suggestions, and the review score was around 75/80% out of 100 on Steam, with more positive reviews appearing during release. Other negative reviews were focused on the long opening, and how it was confusing that characters kept being swapped in the opening. Some people felt that the game lacked action, especially in the early moments - this led to them becoming bored in the game. There were also mentions of game-breaking bugs, but those have since been addressed. Since November 24th 2017, Harry ceased updates to the GameJolt page of White Pearl - due to a lack of downloads. It remains as Version 1.0.3 on that page. Within the first two weeks of the Itch release, the game reached 100 downloads. It hit 200 downloads by early January. The Steam release of White Pearl has reached 5000 downloads, and 2000 players as of January 2018. As of May 2018, Harry reported that downloads of White Pearl have reached 15000 and that milestones were met - specifically the community that had created a lot of discussion around the game, as well as a let's play series being released on YouTube, and a few compilation videos made for the game - showcasing it's animations. As part of White Pearl's first anniversary since release on GameJolt, White Pearl 2.0 was announced on 18th October 2018. The patch contains new features to the game such as an extension to the crafting and trading system, complete overhaul of items and abilities, new items and abilities, and post game content. It also contains one new scene with A'thir. The patch was developed for a month prior to it's announcement. The patch notes were released at 5th November 2018 in a WIP stage - allowing players to view changes as time progresses. Patch 2.0 was developed in unison with the game's prequel, Fabrication, and neither slowed each other down - since Harry worked on one or the other. No other formal announcements were made until 9th April 2018 - where it was revealed that Patch 2.0 will be released in two parts: - Patch 2.0 Part I: Balance and System Changes - Patch 2.0 Part II: Compatibility Patch for Fabrication This was done to finally separate White Pearl's development from Fabrication - so it was easier to work on just one thing, as well as give new players a better experience. Patch 2.0 was developed with review feedback in mind - giving greater depth and improving quality of life to the game: one of the main features of 2.0 was the implementation of skippable cutscenes, which were released with Part I. Part II will not be released until after Fabrication. As of March 2019, the series' official Twitter reported that total downloads of White Pearl across all platforms exceeded 20,000 - and, with the average review score 75% or more, Harry considered the project a surprising success - despite explaining that most negative reviews on Steam were no longer reflective on the game because it had undergone improvement through this feedback since then. Still, the reception met expectations, but it was not expected for downloads to be so high. Plot The Introduction The game opens by explaining about how Magtek's Curse upon the Light Gods limited their power, causing the Departis - where the Gods have to regularly sleep in order to restore what power they have expended. It is shown that Magtek created the Priori, the cause of the Dark Eras, as punishment against the Light Gods - who sympathised with their creation. With the threat of the Priori, Stendarr created the Dawntreaders and Divinia created the White Pearl - these will be vital tools to combat each Dark Era, with one Dawntreader being assigned to protect the Keeper of the White Pearl each Era. Stendarr also created the Weave of Fate, which is essentially a script which controls the happenings in Ottrea, as well as the Keeper's and Dawntreader's future. During the creation of the Dawntreader for the Fifth Dark Era, it is showcased, that the Dawntreader (named Redlac) was actually once human. The Dawntreader must undergo a trial in order to prove his worth to the Gods. Redlac appears shocked, confronting the Gods about how his former life will never be the same. The Gods sympathise with his plight, but saying that they had no choice to pick a human vessel - as they did not have the power to create a being to rival the Priori from scratch. Redlac accepts this, saying that he'll do it for the Keeper, and Elyswer. During the test, Redlac is faced with visions of Cassiopeia, Pearlto and Elrise. They describe their individual problems they will suffer from and ask Redlac for help and advice. Redlac is unsure how to deal with this, as he does not know who they are. Despite his lack of knowledge, should he gain some, he reaffirms that he will help them. Divinia seems pleased with the result, explaining that he will eventually meet them and gain insight - but not until the Weave of Fate dictates so. The game then switches to Kurone, who is in the middle of writing a report about Aura - before being interuppted by Walt asking her to meet him. The player can control Kurone is this section, discovering books about Magtek's Curse, Aura and the ability to read up on Kurone's report - which is currently unfinished. The First Chapter Pearlto wakes up, and remembers that he has to complete a contract today. He equips his armor, and heads downstairs. The General, who is the head of the Adventurer's Guild, reminds Pearlto of his duty to kill the Chimera at Falcon Cave. He notices that Pearlto has been performing well and staying true to his word at the Guild, so he encourages Pearlto to lay off time at the inn after the hunt is completed. Once out in Falcon Fields, Pearlto discovers the entrance to the cave and goes in. In the cave, Pearlto and Melvy find a sign which tells them the chimera has been sealed below. The pair find a lever to unblock the descent down into Beast's Rest. Just before going down, Melvy decides that she will leave Pearlto to take care of the hunt. Pearlto is shocked at her decision to leave, saying that he can't do this on his own. Melvy tells Pearlto to "man up and get on with it" and reminds him of his sensitive nature, which she believes Katkin won't be happy to hear about. Arriving at Beast's Rest, Pearlto spots Katkin there which is already in combat with the chimera. The two slay the chimera together. As Pearlto and Katkin return to Falcon Fields through the teleporter, the king of Ancarna has been struck down by a dark force while discussing the current state of the world with his advisors: Elsay, Elrise and Elyswer. Elsay and Elyswer are shocked by this, and bids Elsay go to Falcon to appeal to the king to help there's from his condition. Elyswer also gives Elsay a communication device, and Elrise follows behind.